The Canadian University Software Engineering Conference (or CUSEC) is a three-day event that brings together undergraduate and post-graduate students for learning, networking, and sharing their passion for software. CUSEC 2012 will happen from January 19-21, 2012 in Montreal, Quebec.

About Our Theme

Alan Turing is widely regarded as the father of computer science and artificial intelligence because of his role in formalizing the concepts of “algorithm” and “computation” with the Turing machine, a theoretical device that manipulates symbols on a strip of tape. During World War 2, Turing worked for Britain’s code breaking center and helped devise techniques to break German ciphers. After the war, he created one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, the ACE. Turing was prosecuted in 1952, when homosexuality was criminal in the UK. He was forced to undergo hormonal treatment by the British government, and committed suicide two years later. [1]

To mark the 100th anniversary of Turing’s birth, 2012 has been designated Alan Turing Year. CUSEC will commemorate Turing’s influence on computer science by naming our theme after him.

Here at CUSEC, we would like to honor Turing’s innovations and discoveries by dedicating our 2012 theme to Alan Turing.

Below is our logo designed by Rebecca Cohen Palacios and you can find more of her work at http://loudcat.net

From the designer, Rebecca: Turing complete is a pretty abstract idea to represent in simple and aesthetically pleasing means. Sure you could do something like “Digital == Turing” but that’s nothing too interesting. Since Turing machines in general are complete I decided to boil it down its basic (and suggested) idea, that is: “tape with symbols being read on it”. And after several hours of Google image browsing I stumbled across comics depicting people getting tangled up in the tape from their Turing machine. It was from this idea that I decided to formulate the words “Turing Complete” from tangled tape.